Comfort Women

Comfort Women in China during World War II World War II was one of the most brutal and destructive wars of all time. Millions of lives were lost, and countless lives were taken by means other than death. Hundreds of thousands Asian women were forced into sex slavery during World War II by the Japanese military. Many were coerced with promises of factory jobs and expensive gifts; however, other women were kidnapped off the streets or sold by their families as teenagers. The women suffered inhumane treatment and often were killed from repeated sexual abuse or abortions. Other women were murdered for resisting. These comfort women were stationed at military brothels known as “comfort stations” to meet the sexual desires of the Japanese soldiers.

The women were categorized as “ammunition” in the Japanese military’s budget, and they were considered military property. The women suffered multiple rapes a day; some women were forced to “comfort” as many as thirty or forty men daily. Comfort women who resisted the Japanese soldiers were abused and sometimes murdered to insure silence and compliance. Women were boiled alive, skewered from the vagina to the mouth, and forced to commit suicide; one woman wrote a poem depicting a companion in the comfort station who was boiled alive and fed to the other

One of the comfort women mentioned the scars left on her body after years of abuse from Japanese men; she wrote about her mother’s reaction to the scars by saying, “My baby! Your skin is like white jade, dazzling.” However, the poem continues and shares that the mother hanged herself; the girl’s father banished the former comfort woman from her home because of the shame that she had caused her family. Families ostracized their daughters which led to many suicides committed by former comfort women. Many comfort women suffered from the shame being a comfort woman placed on them. Yet, shame was not the only way women suffered. Many women contracted sexually transmitted diseases and became sterile due to a lack of proper medical treatment and repeated sexual abuse. Mental ailments were also common among women who were forced to provide “comfort” to the Japanese soldiers; most of the survivors suffered night terrors, insomnia, nervous breakdowns, and other forms of psychological